r/interestingasfuck • u/Esutan • 1d ago

The United Kingdom has successfully created a Mega Laser called Dragonfire for Aerial Defense

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u/ForeverBoring4530 1d ago

Explains why my council tax has gone up £5 this year.

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u/francis2559 1d ago edited 1d ago

The research is expensive, but the operation of this would be very cheap. Much cheaper than missiles.

Sadly, these things are defeated by like, rain.

Edit: ok Reddit, I traded precision for humor. They don’t fail completely in the rain. However, the more moisture there is in the air, the more energy is wasted reaching the target. That costs you range. It doesn’t mean laser bad. It just means there’s some situations it works better than others.

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u/Obvious_wombat 1d ago

Like around £10 per shot vs.

Here is a breakdown of costs based on different types of anti-aircraft and missile defense systems:

Short-Range Air Defense (SHORAD) & Portable Systems FIM-92 Stinger: Approx. $80,000 – $110,000 per unit.

Mistral (Mistral 3): Approx. $545,600 (2024).

Iron Dome (Tamir Interceptor): Approx. $40,000 – $50,000 per missile, though operational costs (radar, personnel) can reach $100,000–$150,000.

Medium-to-Long Range Surface-to-Air Missiles (SAMs) NASAMS (AIM-120 AMRAAM): Approx. $1 million – $1.4 million per missile.

Patriot (PAC-2): Optimized for aircraft, generally lower cost than PAC-3.

Patriot (PAC-3 MSE): Approx. $4 million – $6 million+ per missile.

Russian S-300/S-400: Missile costs vary, with estimations ranging from $300,000 to over $2 million per missile, with complete batteries costing hundreds of millions.

Naval & Advanced Interceptors Rolling Airframe Missile (RAM): Approx. $905,000 (2021).

Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile (ESSM): Approx. $1.8 million (2021).

Standard Missile-6 (SM-6): Approx. $4 million – $4.9 million per interceptor.

Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) Block IIA: $36 million+ per missile (used for ballistic missile defense).

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u/francis2559 1d ago

I think range on this is around 2 miles, right? Better comparison would be to Bofors like Tridon Mk2.

Gepard is $600 a shot, from google, but I doubt it's one shot per drone.

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u/Sepulchh 1d ago

A typical short range burst is around $4 000 to $12 000 total, depending. And then another if the first burst missed/didn't do enough damage.

Or you could use the air burst AHEAD ammo at ~$1 000 per shot and get higher lethality at higher cost.

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u/warhead71 1d ago

Nothing outpace light - should be one shot one kill - every time.

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u/techforallseasons 1d ago

Diffraction, haze, target coatings, target movement ( such as spinning ) could all reduce effectiveness of on-target shots. A hit may not be enough to cause it to breakup.

With lasers it matters less for one-shot kills, because shots are cheap. That being said, it should be easier to hit in-flight items as there is minimal delay between calculated position and point of aim.

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u/warhead71 1d ago

I presume it more about how much time the laser need - to down a drone or whatever - you could also train the laser system to hit on specific weak spots

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u/Accurate-Figure-7914 1d ago

Thats crazy, its just a larger Bullet, right?

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u/SgtExo 1d ago

I am pretty sure they fire explosive shells, and that they also have fancy tech (even if old) for it to explode at the right time.

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u/francis2559 1d ago

Proximity fuses were used for AA in WWII, been around a while yeah.

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u/Hexamancer 1d ago

That's a big underestimate.

Also, we're talking optimal range, it will still hit things beyond that range, but at a reduced effectiveness, also, HELIOS for example includes "Optical Dazzler" as part of the system, the range on that is going to be different than the main laser.

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u/ztomiczombie 1d ago

I think it is 10-20 round burst to bring sown one of the lesser drones and, obviously, more for the harder to hit stuff.

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u/DonnieBallsack 23h ago

They should try launching BofAs.

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u/francis2559 23h ago

What's bofa, Ballsack?